


New Adventure

by TheBrilliantBrunette



Series: Rafael Barba x Reader- In Love With The ADA [4]
Category: Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Cutesy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Lawyers, Parent Rafael Barba, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Rafael Barba & Olivia Benson Friendship, Rafael Barba Whump, Reader-Insert, Retcon Timeline, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, We're Gonna Ignore February 7 2018, the undiscovered country never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrilliantBrunette/pseuds/TheBrilliantBrunette
Summary: Your life is perfect: your working your dream job, married to your dream man, and have a stupid fat orange cat. Life is great, and then you get pregnant...and you thought it couldn't get any better.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Reader, Rafael Barba/You
Series: Rafael Barba x Reader- In Love With The ADA [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/836445
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. Catalina Diaz Give Me Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so I recently joined a tumblr group chat and that's the main reason for this series existing! I have an academic paper to write so please fuel my procrastination efforts by leaving comments and kudos below and bookmarking for updates when I post next!

Pacing around the small four-by-four foot bathroom, you couldn’t help but feel frustrated as time seemed to move slower than usual as you counted down the three minutes and twenty-six seconds remaining on your timer.  
Chewing mindlessly on your thumb nail you attempted to quell the mix of nerves and nausea that wrapped themselves around your insides as the seconds passed by like water droplets from a leaky faucet.  
Glancing at your phone again, you let out a groan and collapsed onto the toilet seat, letting out a growl of frustration as the numbers two thirty-nine flashed in your mind.  
You ran a hand through your hair and closed your eyes.  
All your life, you’d been a planner. Ever since you were in fourth grade you would use pages and pages of paper to plot your future just as you saw, just as it should be. Some days, you wanted to be a veterinarian with a farm on your property, married to a cowboy, setting out apple pies on the windowsill for kids and hungry dogs to steal. Others you wanted to be a doctor, with days so full of saving lives and living on a hectic schedule that romance and domestic life never even crossed your mind.  
But none of that had happened, and you couldn’t be happier.  
You had it all. A career you loved, the perfect husband, a beautiful home, and a big, fat cat who was as stupid as the day is long. Your life was perfect, practically a dream.  
And yet here you were now, two paths laid before you, one were you continued on the same journey as before, just as you had been expecting to for the foreseeable future, while the other would turn your world upside down and inside out.  
It wasn’t that the idea of having a family with Rafael didn’t appeal to you- you couldn’t think of anything you wanted more in life. It wasn’t because you were afraid he wouldn’t want to start a family with you- you had discussed the topic in depth before getting married and, though he was lukewarm about the idea, he seemed to see it more as the cherry on top of an already perfect life: nice, but he didn’t need to have one.  
What terrified you was the sheer unpredictability of it all, how it suddenly just came out of nowhere, without warning, like the hosts at a restaurant when they find out it’s your birthday.  
Actually, it was exactly like that.  
Eating out on your birthday is basically like playing a game of russian roulette where, at any second, the Texas Roadhouse staff could wheel out the saddle, put a cowboy hat on you, and start singing the bootleg version of happy birthday.  
For months, you and Rafael had been doing just that...metaphorically of course.  
While you weren’t actively trying, you weren’t actively preventing it either.  
God, had you learned nothing from all those “rubber up, don’t fuck,” talks in high school?  
It had all started last week, when you realized you were about a week overdue for your period, even though your cramping stomach made you think it was coming any day now. You’d decided to wait it out for one more week, which had come and gone squeaky clean, leaving behind only a new symptom (nausea) in its wake. It was this morning, crouched over the teacher’s lounge toilet at Rosedale High School between third and fourth period that you realized you needed to buy a pregnancy test and learn once and for all the truth of what was really going on.  
Checking the timer on your phone, you groaned when you learned you still had 2:35 minutes left of not knowing.  
Leaning back against the tank of the toilet, you tried to imagine what life would be like if that stick of plastic in 2:35 minutes had a plus sign on it.  
You’d always loved kids, ever since you were a kid, you wanted to play house and take care of baby dolls, and the only reason you looked forward to middle school was because you’d turn twelve and could then legally begin babysitting. You’d imagined your future children hundreds of times over the years but, never with the threat of their impending arrival dawning over you.  
You’d decided a long time ago that if you ever had a boy, his name would be Dominic. You would call him Dom for short, or Minnie if you wanted to embarrass him in front of his friends. Robert was also a strong contender for a boys’ name, you’d call him Robbie though, none of the Bob bs. Dominic just had a more New York feel to it though, and you supposed that was why you were having an easier time picturing a baby Dominic Barba bouncing around the house rather than a Robbie Barba.  
If it was a girl you’d always wanted to name her something earthy, like Lily or Rose or something like that. But, you couldn’t help but think that, if there was a little girl, growing inside of you right at this very moment, you’d like to name her after Rafael’s grandmother, Catalina.  
Looking down at your left hand, the cream pearls that once belonged to Catalina Diaz starred up at you. Rafael had told you after you’d gotten engaged that the first of the three pearls was from his grandmother’s old rosary. It had been the first thing his grandfather had bought upon arrival to America from Cuba, and Rafael himself was the one who broke it when he was a baby. He’d had it custom set for you, three pearls of the rosary were taken off, reshaped, and set with a diamond in the middle and three other diamonds shaped like leaves at the ends to make the entire piece look like a flower.  
You smiled at the memory and found yourself lightly rubbing a finger over the pearl’s smooth surface, a calming act that somehow made the 2:35 minutes fly right by, because you were only snapped out of your trance when the alarm on your phone rang and caused you to nearly jump out of your skin.  
Rushing to shut it off, you stood before the mirror and sink of your bathroom, the test laying on the cool marble, just begging to be picked up, your stomach twisted in knots at the very thought and you let out a sigh, a shaky hand outstretching itself on the test.  
“Catalina, if you’re out there,” you found yourself whispering to your long dead grandmother-in-law, “let this test be what it needs to be.”  
And, without another moment's hesitation, you grabbed the test and examined it closely.  
Two pink lines.  
A positive.  
You let out a breath and found your mouth curling upwards into a cheshire cat-like smile. You set the test back down on the bathroom counter, both a little peeved out by how nasty it was, and also thinking of it like an extension of the child inside you right now. You settled for placing a palm on your abdomen and letting out a child like giggle.  
Plan or no plan, you and Rafael were going to be parents; you just had to figure out a way to tell him that.


	2. Eating for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reader devises a plan to announce her pregnancy to Rafael, meanwhile Rafael deals with a particularly frustrating case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Thank you so much for the support on the last chapter! I'm currently quarantined inside my house because coronavirus sucks and so now I really have no excuse to not be writing so here we go! Please be sure to like and comment down below and bookmark for updates on when I post next!

Once the shock of the test results wore off, you grabbed your phone and immediately called Rafael’s number, the phone only ringing twice before your husband’s voice came through the speaker.   
“Cariño, I was just about to call you,” Rafael said.  
“Oh yeah?” you asked, a goofy smile still plastered to your face, the test still clutched in your hand.   
“Yeah, I’m gonna be staying at the office late tonight, so don’t wait up for me,” Rafael said.   
Both your face and stomach fell at his words and you felt all the air leave your body. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Rafael to spend hours upon hours at One Hogan Place, his ambition and dedication to the job was what had attracted you to him in the first place. But, really? Tonight of all nights? Couldn’t crime just stop for one night?  
“Oh,” you said, “okay.”   
“Yeah I know, so fun, right?” Rafael said sarcastically, “so, what is it that you called about?”   
You snapped back to your senses, your gaze falling on the plus sign etched plastic. What were you doing? You couldn’t tell Rafael about this over the phone? Were you insane? He needed to be here, you needed to see him, to watch his face break into a smile, his eyes gleam as he realized he was going to be a father...or the opposite could happen and his face could fall and he could tell you that he never expected nor wanted to be a father, but...that’s exactly why you needed to see him.   
Closing your eyes, shaking your head, and taking a deep breath, you found your voice,   
“No reason, just wanted to say I love you.”   
You heard Rafael snort on the other end of the phone and you pictured his cute little smirk that made him look years younger when he wore it, like a lovesick twenty-something all over again.   
“I love you too, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” he responded.  
“I’ll see you then,” you said.   
You exchanged goodbyes with Rafael before ending the call and, dejectedly, placing the test on the counter, walked back to your bedroom and threw yourself melodramatically onto the large king-size bed that you and Rafael had bought soon after you’d moved in together.   
It was just your luck that Rafael would be staying late at the office that night, which meant more waiting, hooray!   
You let out a groan at the thought of more waiting. You’d never been a patient person and with a secret as big and life changing as this weighing on you, it was even more agonizing. And it’s not even like you could ease the burden by sharing the news with anyone else, it was part of Rafael just as much as it was a part of you, you couldn’t go and tell someone before you told him, right? Right.   
Also, you needed to stop calling the baby an “it.” That made this feel more like the pregnancy from Alien than the magical experience Pinterest and Hallmark always tried to sell you.   
Your mind was doing somersaults, going over and over itself as new thoughts came in and out and grew bigger and bigger and bigger until they were a gigantic ball of stress and worry that was running ruts into your skull.   
A soft “purrip” pulled you from the abyss of your mind and you opened your eyes to find Majesty, your and Rafael’s cat, sitting on the bed beside you.   
Reaching out a hand, you scratched the top of Majesty’s head, which was all the invitation he needed to step right on up onto your chest and loaf, the rumbling of his purrs mixed with the heavy weight of his plump body made it feel as though you were laying under a weighted blanket, his closed eyes making him the perfect picture of serenity and peacefulness, oh how you envied him.   
“What are we gonna do, Majesty?” you asked as you pet him, “Am I just supposed to sit here and wait until tomorrow to tell daddy that you’re gonna be a big brother?”   
Majesty didn’t respond, obviously, but your words suddenly struck a cord deep within you and, all of the sudden, you realized what you had to do.   
\----------------  
Staying late at the office was never fun, but especially not when you had the Special Victims Unit, the DA, and the New York press breathing down your neck to get a conviction. And that was currently exactly what Rafael Barba had been dealing with for the past week and a half. A high profile millionaire’s son had been accused of raping a girl when she was drunk and passed out at a party and everyone was out for blood, perhaps no one more than the current occupant of the chair opposite his desk: Olivia Benson.   
Although the detectives had tried as hard as possible on this case, Buchanan was one of the smarmiest and slickest attorney’s Rafael had ever gone up against, and he had somehow managed to get a key piece of evidence thrown out, essentially ruining any chance Barba had on getting a significant sentence.   
Standing up from his padded office chair, he strode over to the office coffee pot and refilled his mug for the...fourth time? Fifth? He genuinely could not remember. The wicked migraine forming behind his eyes only adding to his growing frustration.   
“Look Barba, is there anyway she doesn’t have to testify?” Olivia asked.   
Rafael sighed, “only if we want him to go free,” he said.   
Olivia let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” she said, “I don’t think she can handle going to trial.”   
“I can try to get a plea,” Rafael said, walking back to his seat, “but it’s unlikely it’ll be anything more than some probation and a slap on the wrist.”   
Olivia nodded, her brows scrunched together signifying that she was deep in thought, “I’ll talk to Maisie about it,” she said, standing up and making her way to the door.  
When the door shut behind her, Barba sat back down at his desk and took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, it wasn’t anything close to good and he much preferred Starbucks, but, desperate times, right?   
And this truly was a desperate time.   
For the past few months it seemed as though Barba couldn’t catch a break. It was a constant stream of one case after the next, each one more horrible and more complicated than the rest. Then this case comes along and it seems like it’s going to be a nice change of pace...well, not nice but they had so much evidence. The perp didn’t wear a condom, an eyewitness pulled him off of the victim mid-attack, and the victim had been completely passed out when it happened, essentially ending any claim of consent before they even began. Then came the perp’s rich family with connections all the way to the top, and Buchanan playing the Jose Baez part and not trying to prove his client’s innocence, but just creating reasonable doubt with the jurors, and voila, the perfect migraine.   
Turning to the case files sitting open on his desk, Rafael did what he did best: strategize.   
How could he win the juror’s over? How could he turn the tides against the defense and make the juror’s see that silver-spoon-sucking punk as the rapist he really and truly was? What was important to include, what could be omitted, and on and on and on. While he could admit it was a little tedious, after a while he found himself falling into a groove and everything just seemed to flow out of him as easy as though he were breathing, that is until he was interrupted.   
A knock at the door broke his concentration, looking up he saw his secretary, Carmen’s, dark, round face poking through a crack in the door.   
“Mr. Barba?” she said.  
“What is it?” he asked, attempting to take another sip of his coffee only to find his mug empty, how long had he been working?   
“Your wife is here to see you,” Carmen said.   
And those two words were all it took for the frustration of the day to start to seep away.   
Your wife.   
If he was being honest, before he met (y/n) he was beginning to think it would never happen. Dating and romance had been so far removed from his world that he’d almost forgotten what it was like, and how much he had missed it. You’d thrown a welcome wrench into his work-obsessed world, and he would welcome you to do it again anytime.   
A smile grew on his face like he was the cheshire cat, “send her in, please.”   
Carmen nodded before opening the door fully and allowing for (y/n) to step inside.   
She looked, as always, immaculate, it didn’t matter if she was getting ready for a Cinderella style ball or just waking up in the morning, Rafael could never find a single flaw in her appearance. Around her wrist was a plastic to-go back with the words “thank you,” written in big red block lettering on the sides, and in her hands was a styrofoam box. The smell of the food she’d brought with her made his stomach growl and he glanced at his watch, surprised to see that it was 6:30, he swore it had only been 4 when Liv left.   
“Are you gonna get up and kiss me or do I have to walk over there and get it myself?” (y/n) asked teasingly.   
Rafael laughed and walked to meet her, taking the food out of her arms and placing it on his desk before planting a tender kiss onto her lips. After almost three years of being together it amazed him that everytime they kissed it still managed to stir butterflies in his stomach.   
Pulling away, Rafael smirked, “how was that?” he mocked.   
She nodded, “worth the half-hour of traffic it took to get here.”   
“Good,” Rafael said, “and thank you for the food.”   
Rafael felt her tense against him, almost immediately an alarm bell went off inside his head.   
“You okay?” he asked.   
She turned to look at him, her eyes wide as she nodded, “yeah, I just hope you’re in the mood for Thai food.”   
Barba raised an eyebrow and shot her a suspicious look, “is that even a question?”   
She smiled as she snuck around him to the desk and began unpacking the plastic bag and setting up the makeshift dinner table.   
“Why are there three boxes?” Barba asked, just noticing.   
She took a shaky breath and shook her head, “I figured I’d get you lunch for tomorrow too, two birds with one stone, right?”   
“Right,” Rafael said, his suspicions rising, his mind flashing back to the phone call they’d had a few hours prior, had she sounded nervous then?  
Leaning back against the desk, Rafael looked at his wife.   
“Cariño,” Rafael began, “are you sure everything’s alright?”   
“I’m fine, Raf, seriously,” she said, “now sit down and eat your dinner.”   
Putting his hands up in a defensive stance, Raf took his seat next to his wife and took the to-go container from her hand, was it lighter than usual?  
Thanking her, he opened the box, ready to dig in only to be met with an almost empty container save for one thing: the best he could describe it was as a weird looking, pink colored thermometer with a plus sign, proudly displayed on the side.   
He stared in awe down at it for a moment, not quite sure how to react as the pieces of the puzzle slowly began to click together. The phone call, (Y/n)’s nervousness, it all made sense, but...how?  
“Well,” (Y/n) said, “is there something wrong with your food?”   
Rafael turned up to look at her, “yeah, you sure you got the right one?”   
She nodded, “I’m sure,” she said.   
“You’re really pregnant?”   
(Y/n) nodded, “I just found out this afternoon.”   
Rafael set the box aside and practically scooped his wife up into his arms, his heart swelling and he couldn’t stop beaming, one single thought racing through his head.   
“We’re gonna have a baby!” he said, “I can’t believe I’m gonna be a dad! I can’t believe you put a pregnancy test in a to-go box.”   
“I thought it was a cute idea at the time!”   
“It was-it is!” Rafael said, his hands moved up to cup (y/n)’s face.  
It took about another thirty minutes for the two to calm down, and by then they were forcing themselves to eat dinner before racing out of the office and back to their cushy apartment.   
Work could wait for Rafael, he had something much more important to worry about now.


End file.
